Vintage Denim Features Many Forgettable Fashions
With the recent comeback of vintage jeans in the fashion world it can be east to overlook some of the more embarrassing styles that were once a part of our social culture. Of course we all can all laugh at the bell bottom stylings of the past, but ever since they made their way back onto the scene they don’t seem as bad. Not to worry though, there are plenty of other styles to take their place as the most forgettable denim fashions of years gone by.
Acid Wash
Reaching their pinnacle in the late eighties, acid wash jeans were the most commonly found style of their time. This bleached-out look fit well with the poofy hair and neon colors of the era. The two most prominent types were the spot-bleached designs and the stone-washed textures. It is hard to say where this style got started, but it probably began with an accidental bleach spill in a college campus somewhere.
The Big Baggy Look
It has taken quite a few years for form fitting denim to come back into rotation for men, and plenty of guys still prefer a slight sag to their jeans. However, you would be hard pressed to find any sensible socialite sporting the extreme oversized jeans that were an underground sensation in the late nineties. Most popular with the hip-hop and punk rock cultures, these pants featured leg widths that were up to tens times wider than the average pair. A unique look for sure, but most people try to appear slimmer in their clothes instead enormous.
The Jean Skirt
Even though women get most of the credit for establishing fashion trends there are plenty of regrettable styles to be found in their long history. Denim skirts may one day make comeback, but we would all be surprised if the ruffled skirts of the eighties ever see the light of day again. Serving as a cross between a dress and jeans, these hybrids-gone-wrong had Madonna followers everywhere running to the mall with their credit cards in hand. Thankfully this fashion only lasted a few years.
Graffiti Jeans
How many things were wrong with hip-hop fashions of late eighties? Quite a few to be sure, but nothing tops the airbrushed masterpieces worn by many performers of this era. Whether it was your street name or a subtle political message, there was always something you could convey on your pants with airbrush art. Luckily this fad fell out of favor once people discovered they could never wash their favorite jeans without ruining their creative designs.
These are just a few examples of vintage denim fashions that have ended up in the vast graveyard of social has-beens. Of course we like to think we have learned from our past mistakes, but there will always be a telltale fashion for every generation that we would like to forget.
